Creatures of the night

[koganbot]

Over at the Jukebox the subject of funky house somehow came up on a Jay Reatard thread, and so here's my addition to a conversation between martinskidmore and chuckeddy:

Martin, I'm nowhere near being someone who creates or consumes the codes surrounding "funky house," but it sure seems to be coding something more than just "fun dance music" – I hear stylishness, and the adventure and mystery of the night, and not just anyone's night (no mere boshing Cascadas here), but a discerning listener's poignant and risky night.

Not that it shouldn't, since something that's "just fun" usually isn't all that fun, but I don't know of much that's trying to be nothing more than fun anyway.

I read you more as being fed up with rock's tired and stodgy results, but that's not a knock on rock's ambitions, is it? I do see where one can argue that rock's old ambitions have now become a cover for what's actually defensive and unimaginative, but that's not a result that's written into either the ambitions or drawing on the not-so-recent past for one's vocabulary.

(The adventure and mystery of the night is a role that rock once laid claim to - the electric excitement of the electric guitar! - and rock's night-time adventure is something that Marshall Jefferson in Chicago and the techno guys in Detroit were consciously emulating, right?)

[Also, check Chuck's comparison between electronic dance and metal: "there is a kind of rock these days that's as obsessed with new strange innovative sounds as the most extreme kinds of electronic dance music or whatever, and it's called metal. But just like in dance music, supposed metal innovations now seem to happen in almost indiscernible increments, within a more and more conscribed perimeter, so you need to be an expert with a microscope to even notice them."]

[I suspect "conscribed" is a hybrid of "prescribed" and "constricted."]

Comments

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

[I suspect "conscribed" is a hybrid of "prescribed" and "constricted."]

Maybe even "conscripted," too? Honestly, I have no idea where that word came from!

Anyway, here's how I followed Frank's post on that thread, though part of it will make much more sense if you read the entire thread (and there, I fucked up the html, as often happens):

Honestly, my biggest problem with rock music these days is that it isn’t (or doesn’t, take your pick) rock enough. Which I guess somewhat aligns with Frank’s “tired and stodgy results.” (And which, again, doesn’t mean I don’t find some other genres at least as tired these days.) (And again, if we’re talking “adventure and mystery of the night,” I don’t see how the Reatard “Lightning Bug” song I quoted above doesn’t aim for that, since that’s what the song’s about.)

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have nothing against rock's ambitions at all, nor its desire to be edgy and radical. As you know, these days I am far keener on hip hop and R&B, but my youth was all about punk (I was 17 when it started here, a perfect age), and a large proportion of my favourite records ever are rock of various kinds. Punk in '76/'77 clearly did reference some older acts (Dolls, Stooges etc) but it didn't merely recycle them, and what it was using was relatively obscure. Punk did seem radical and dangerous at the time, but now the acts doing exactly the same thing are about as fresh and exciting as swing was in 1977. The trouble is, rock still gets positioned as the most artistically interesting genre ("music" mags are primarily rock mags - anything centred on anything else labels itself by the genre), and acts making music that their parents might have seen as dated often think they are radical and exciting and dangerous. I do like the odd rock record, still, but the vast majority strikes me as incredibly tired and void of ideas or ambition, and it's still all over the place. I'd struggle to name three rock acts that started in the last 20 years that I really care about.

I can't talk about funky house with any expertise, but I guess to me it is fun dance music. Yes, more stylish and classy than Cascada, say, but then almost everything is. I guess i ma using 'fun' in a pretty broad sense here.

Actually, some more thoughts strike me about fun and rock's positioning. There were reunion shows some years ago by some acts I love, like the Velvets and Pistols - and I wanted nothing to do with them, because they felt of their time, and by the time of the reunions I felt I would just find it depressing, however well they recreated past glories. On the other hand, I did go to see the Stooges in 2005 or so - I guess coming to them late made a difference, took them out of their time-specific context. I suppose the Velvets' historic place was more present to me. I also went to see the Rezillos 25 years after their one great album - they were about fun and exciting tunes, not any kind of rebellion, so I had no trouble enjoying them enormously.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

A few thoughts (probably too late for anybody to read them, as usual, but what the heck):

1. I'm not so sure that "rock still gets positioned as the most artistically interesting genre." Seems to me that, if you asked most rock critics (American ones anyway), they'd say the most important and innovative genre of the past, oh, 20 or 30 years, has been hip-hop, not rock. In fact, you hear this said so often that it's basically an unquestioned truism by now. Can't remember the last time I heard a crtic say flat out that rock has been more innovative than hip-hop.

2. But even if rock is generally considered he most interesting genre, the rock bands that critics tend to name are almost never "punk" bands - unless Green Day count, I guess, but by now seems like they're more trying to do late-Who concept album type thing (badly). But even they're an exception, I think. Mostly, the newer "rock" bands considered important seem to be amorphous art bands with (to my ears) a fairly tenuous sonic relationship to rock music -- Radiohead, TV On the Radio, Animal Collective, Bright Eyes (more folkies I guess), later Flaming Lips (who critics didn't care about back when they did actually play rock music), etc. Probably I'm forgetting some obvious ones (and okay, ignoring the Hold Steady and White Stripes and Driveby Truckers, who are more formalists than expressionists I suppose), but still, I doubt a consensus of critics would argue that any of these artists (except maybe Radiohead?) were as important this decade as, say, OutKast or Kanye West, would they?

3. I went to one of the Stooges reunion shows in Manhattan a few years back, and walked out halfway through the set, I thought it was so depressing. Thought their comeback album (and the Dolls' first comeback album too) was pretty lame, as well. Do like the new Status Quo album, and the live Sweet album recorded onstage in California in August 2008, though. So sue me.

4. I was 17 in 1977 too, fwiw. Wasn't paying attention to punk (or any other music) at the time, though. So maybe that's a difference, who knows. Plus I wasn't in England.

5. 20 years ago, I probably would have totally agreed that rock had been totally outshined as entertainment and interesting music by hip-hop and r&b and dance music (electronic and otherwise). But, uh, not to be blunt, but that was 20 fucking years ago. For the past two decades, I've found all of those genres almost as frustrating, and sometimes far more frustrating, than rock -- especially when you figure in metal to the latter (and especially especially if you figure in country, which by now the most rock-sounding music in existence). So again, in 2009, it strikes me as odd to single rock out for sucking.

6. That said, most of the developments in mainstream rock (or the music people tend to call rock) since the incursion of grunge, emo, and rap-metal have left be consistently cold. And indie rock has been piddly for decades, and just keeps getting piddlier. So rock pisses me off a lot, too.

7. A few indie-bred rock bands from the '00s I've found worth paying attention to, and often rewarding, regardless: the Hold Steady, White Stripes, Red Swan, Hard Skin, FM Knives, Exploding Hearts, Drive-By Truckers, Dropkick Murphys, Drunk Horse, Sirens, Mensen, Black Lips, Notwist, Oneida, Electric Six, Gogol Bordello, Gore Gore Girls. And again, that doesn't even include metal.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

The Notwist btw (like Flaming Lips) count as another band that "rock" critics didn't really get interested in until they had stopped playing anything that really sounded much like rock music.

And so do Radiohead, if you want to stretch rock's definition around their first couple albums. In fact, it's probably worth noting here that by the far the most critically acclaimed "rock band" of the decade got that acclaim by evolving toward music that probably owed at least as much to electronic art-dance music as to rock.

[koganbot]

20 years ago, I probably would have totally agreed that rock had been totally outshined as entertainment and interesting music by hip-hop and r&b and dance music (electronic and otherwise)

Hmmmm. I guess I'd agree, except 1989 was the year I listed Appetite For Destruction as my album of the decade; and Kix was one of my favorite bands. I was sure at the time that freestyle was the best genre going; it accommodated me by almost immediately collapsing.

I think hip-hop now is better than it was in, say, the mid '90s, except my guess is that that's probably not true, that I just wasn't hearing the right hip-hop in the mid '90s. I've never warmed to Dre and Snoop, though obviously they've got talent, and now I'm willing to admit that Snoop's voice and delivery are some of the best ever, while I still have trouble getting enthusiastic. I've had a Snoop compilation for years and I'm still not sure I've ever listened to it. Dre ended up producing two tracks that'll get in my top ten of the '00s ("In Da Club" and "Real Slim Shady"), so go figure. But anyway, I was totally clueless as to what was happening in Miami and New Orleans and Atlanta in the mid '90s, and in New York and most other places as well, come to think of it, and haven't gone back and caught up. And I'm pretty clueless about hip-hop right now, too, though I assume that the Bangz' "Boys With Tattoos"* is just a tip of several icebergs, all sorts of regional scenes and the like, and that hip-hop's doing fine just out of my earshot.

About this year... I thought the March "Frank's eardrums" CD was among the best I'd ever made, and it was loaded with r&b and hip-hop and dancehall; and I immediately followed up with April, and now... we're five months later and I've barely filled up half of a new one. The Jukebox is tossing up interesting music but not much I'm loving (and I'm often finding myself at odds with the majority, of course, though not writing or listening in time for this to be noticeable, but I don't like that recent VV Brown that everyone was praising, seemed physically aggressive but emotionally lethargic, whereas I liked the Morandi, which mostly elicited sneers, though not from you).

*Which is actually called "We Jerkin'."

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Appetite For Destruction as my album of the decade; and Kix was one of my favorite bands.

Er...Yeah, good point. I guess I'd forgotten about hair-metal in general (the last popular guitar-rock genre I really cared about) when I wrote that "20 years ago" stuff above. But still, I don't think hair-metal in general was as good or important as early Chicago/Detroit house/techo, or early '80s hip-hop or r&b (okay, that's going back a few more years -- but I love plenty of late '80s hip-hop, too), and I suppose I'd rate hair metal and Latin freestyle about equally. And there's lots of other dance pop from the late '80s that falls outside of those genres. (Stacey Q, Company B, Taylor Dayne, Pebbles, Lisa Lisa, Madonna, etc., etc,( So I still think late '80s dance genres beat late '80s rock genres; maybe it's possible I used one "totally" too many when I wrote "I probably would have totally agreed that rock had been totally outshined as entertainment and interesting music by hip-hop and r&b and dance music," though.

Bottom line; let's see here (and I know a lot of this makes me weird.)

I prefer '80s hip-hop to '90s or '00s hip-hop
I prefer '80s house to '90s or '00s house
I prefer '80s techno to '90s or '00s techno
I prefer '80s reggae dancehall to '90s or '00s reggae dancehall
I prefer '80s dance-pop (Latin freestyle etc) to '90s or '00s dance-pop
I vastly prefer '80s r&b to '90s or '00s r&b

BUT...

I also vactly prefer '80s commercial rock (hair metal etc) to '90s or '00s commercial rock AND
I vastly prefer '80s underground/indie rock (new wave, post-punk, pigfuck, etc) to '90s or '00s underground/indie rock

THOUGH ON THE OTHER HAND

I actually prefer '00s commercial country to '80s or '90s commercial country (and I'd probably take '90s over '80s. Which is to say it's the only genre I can think of at the moment that actually seems to be getting better. Or it was; I'd say it peaked a few years ago. Or maybe I'm just souring on it.)

I also prefered '90s Mexican rock to '00s Mexican rock, fwiw. (Don't know enough about '80s Mexican rock to compare. Though actually, by "'90s" here I really mean EARLY '90s, which may well have meant late '80s in Mexico given release dates.) (And there are other musics from all over the world that I'm mostly clueless about whenever they came out.)

On the other other hand....

If the year ended right now, I'd probably have three hip-hop albums (K'Naan, New Boyz, DJ Quick and Kurupt though them just by the skin of their teeth) in my 2009 top ten, the most hip-hop albums I would have listed for several years. And only two country albums (Collin Raye and Brad Paisley) would make my list (with Mac MacAnally and Miranda Lambert on the cusp), which I believe is the fewest country albums I would have listed in several years.

So I have no idea what all that adds up to. Won't ask you to do the math, if i can't do it myself.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

But right, just like with you Frank, there is of course tons of '90s and '00s r&b/hip-hop/house/techno/dance etc that I haven't heard, some of which I'd probably love if I did. But here's the thing: there's ALSO tons of '90s and '00s ROCK that I (and probably you) haven't heard, which ditto. AND there's still tons of '80s r&b/hip-hop/house/techno/dance etc (and rock) that I haven't heard, too! I have gaps in my listening all over the place (country, too!) But I still hear a lot of records. More than most people, I'd say. So I really don't have a problem with making assumptions based on what I HAVE heard.

[koganbot]

I think what it is was that in mid 90s hip-hop, for instance, I wasn't searching the genre in the way that I'd done previously or subsequently; but also, the development of hip-hop seems to have shifted South while the radio was still concentrating on NY and L.A. So I was systematically not hearing what I needed to, probably. Because when I reconnected to hip-hop in '99 or so what I was hearing was frequently incredible, but I didn't know how it got that way.

With metal I'm hopelessly out of it. And with current rock there's something self-fulfilling in my dislike, since if I dislike I don't listen much, if I don't listen much I don't get to hear what I will like or come to appreciate the stuff I was disliking etc. But in the first half of the '00s you and various publicists kept me aware of a lot of rock anyway, and while I was hardly a completist in my listening through Paper Thin Walls in '06-'08, I had a sense of what was out there on the more avant labels that went well beyond "indie," and the best stuff had trouble getting well beyond "interesting," and "not bad."

But then my favorite albums of the '00s - Autobiography, Marshall Mathers LP, Carrying On, Horse Of A Different Color, Blackout - to my mind fit with all the rock I grew up with. And I get the sense that electronic dance (at least of the less Europop type) plays more of a rock role in Europe (and in many U.S. clubs) than current rock does, though by "rock role" I mean the role that rock used to play in my wee years.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

the best stuff had trouble getting well beyond "interesting," and "not bad."

I will concede that this has largely been my experience with the '90s and '00s rock I've liked, too -- Even the Gore Gore Girls (probably my favorite rock band this decade) seem really marginal to me compared to Montgomery Gentry or Ashlee or Eminem. (And to be honest, I've actually had even more problems with metal, where discrete songs tend to be really hard to come by. Though "High Speed GTO" by White Wizzard has an excellent shot at making my top ten singles list this year, fwiw.) Still, I guess I'm just not ready to write off the genre; there's just to much interesting stuff happening. And while I guess my very favorite albums and singles this decade aren't rock (at least if you don't count country or Ashlee type pop as rock), I'd still say I heard as much rock I liked this decade as music from lots of other genres. I guess it depends on how important it is to you that all music be great. For you, I gather that's important. For me, I just want stuff to sustain me, sometimes. Even my favorite albums, I dont't really return to all that much. And this isn't a new phenomenon -- my listening has always been that way. I'd much rather listen to 20 good albums than 1 great one, anyday.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

...Well, it depends how good the 20 and how great the 1 are, I guess -- Carrying On and Horse of A Different Color are probably worth more than most lists-of-20-pretty-good-'00s-albums I can think of. But once I get past those two, and maybe a couple others, I'm not sure how many '00s albums I love unreserverdly anyway. Not even entirely convinced about the Ashlee and Eminem albums you named, to be honest -- I don't even really play them that very often (hell, slogging through The Marshall Mathers LP these days feels like work), in a way Appetite For Destruction or Raw Power sure never did), though I expect that Eminem and one of the first two Ashlees (still not sure which one, probably the debut) would still end up on my top 10 of the decade list, if I were to make one.

[koganbot]

I think what Martin says about rock magazines is more a British phenomenon than an American, though it's hard to tell with everything going online or simply collapsing; but I think he takes the wrong moral from it. Which is to say that the rock magazines play to specialty markets, rather small demographics though ones that like to read. But they're not representative of general critical or public opinion. The critics who write for the weeklies and dailies would almost certainly finger hip-hop as the innovative genre (or they would have several years ago, anyhow), and they'd probably rate Amy Winehouse and ilk as highly as they do indie respectable rock like Arcade Fire and Animal Collective and such (whose rockingness is questionable anyway, as you say).

I need to spend time at the magazine section next time I visit the grocery store - or take a look at Barnes and Noble downtown, which has a more extensive wall of magazines. Not sure what's there, really.

[koganbot]

What rock this year are you liking that isn't country or metal? Last Vegas and Rufus Huff and what else?

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Well, with the caveat that only the asterisked first three or four of these (three of which are way-the-hell-out-there dada prog weirdness, and the fourth of which was recorded 35 years ago) probably have anything like a shot at my top ten based on how much I return to them and like them (and Last Vegas and Rufus Huff don't have a shot either, by the way), and with the other caveats that these get more and more marginal as you go down the list (so a few of these I will ultimately get rid of in the long run I'm sure), and with the last caveat that I left some (old school hard rock style) metal and (non-Nashville) country rock on the list despite your request, here's some that I actually filed on my shelf rather than selling to a used record store:

*Uz Jsme Doma – Cod-Liver Oil (Skoda ’08) (Timelag is okay for obscure Czech bands as far as I'm concerned)
*Jono El Grande – Neo Dada (Rune Grammofon)
*Death – …For The Whole World To See (Drag City reissue EP) [This probably shouldn't count, since it was recorded in the '70s, but it wasn't released until this year, and it's got a lot of press, including a full page by Mike Rubin in the Times, and I suspect it will make a number of critics' top tens, so I'm considering it.)
*Faust – C’est Com…Com…Complique (Bureau)

Liechtenstein – Survival Strategies In The Modern World (Slumberland EP) (Raincoats/Kleenex type post post-punks from uh, Europe I guess)
Dirty Little Rabbits – Simon (The End EP) (Bjorky pop goth metal that's really not that far from Liechtenstein when you get down to it)
Angus Khan – Black Leather Soul (Nickel and Dime) (metallic biker boogie)
Diagonal – Diagonal (Rise Above) (more prog)
Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes) (post-Radiohead/Notwist art crap, but kind of beautiful)!
White Wizzard – High Speed GTO (Earache EP) (just reviwed this in the Voice last week -- it's metal, but more early '80s style metal, which most people don't consider metal anymore anyway)
The Bottle Rockets – Lean Forward (Bloodshot) (alt-country rock)
Mike & The Ravens – No Place For Pretty (Zoho Roots) (weirdly artsy boogie)
Meercaz – Meercaz (Gulcher)
Frozen Bears – 2000 (Frozen Bears)
Alice Donut – Ten Glorious Animals (Alternative Tentacles)
King Khan & BBQ Show – Invisible Girl (In The Red)
Status Quo – In Search Of The Fourth Chord (Eagle)
Drivin N’ Cryin’ – Great American Bubble Factory (Vintage Earth Music)
Health – Get Color (Lovepump United) (fuzzy indie I may well be vastly overrating but it sounded good the first couple times I tried)
The Leftovers – Eager To Please (Crappy) (indie powerpop)
Blackberry Smoke – Little Piece Of Dixie (BamaJam) (boogie with some country in it)
Sinner – Crash And Burn (Candlelight USA) (more old school metal)
Buckwheat Zydeco – Lay Your Burden Down (Alligator) (zydeco boogie rock)
Sarah Borges And the Broken Singles – The Stars Are Out (Sugar Hill)
Steadlür – Everything Is Nothing (Roadrunner) (hair-metal meets pop punk)
Os Mutantes – Haih Or Baraúna (Anti-) (Brazilian tropicalia rock comeback)
Firebird -- Grand Union (Rise Above) (old school hard rock/metal)
Cross Canadian Ragweed – Happiness And All The Other Things (Universal) (country rock)
(Various) – Endless Bummer (Blackheart) (covers of '80s new wave and punk novelty hits mostly)
Cheap Trick – The Latest (cheaptrick.com)
Slaraffenland – We’re On Your Side (Hometapes) (more post Radiohead/Notwist art drip from Holland or someplace, but pretty lovely; see Bear In Heaven up above -- I hope this doesn't mean I actually like Radiohead; more likely these two albums are part of some other movement I know nothing about)
Ian Gillan – One Eye To Morocco (Eagle Rock) (Deep Purple dude goes world music smooth jazz whatever)
Edguy – Tinnitus Sanctus (Nuclear Blast) (old school metal)
The Reds – Early Nothing (Tarock) (post punk art metal)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Again, I just want to be clear that I don't necessarily recommend all of the above albums; certainly don't suggest that anybody go out and spend actual money on them. I'm just saying I heard something that caught my jaded ears as interesting on all of them -- maybe just a couple smart and catchy songs, in some cases (Drivin & Cryin and Cross Canadian Ragweed are pretty spotty actually), or an overall sound that I feel like I might want to return to and investigate more, if I have time someday. Which I probably won't, in many cases, but what the heck. (My habit lately has been to get rid of lots of marginal stuff a year later, when I finally decide that it had its shot and I'll never return to it and I need to clear space. But I'd still predict most of these will stick around here for a while; I'm actually getting choosier in my old age, believe it or not!) (At very least, I'd say all of these have some palpable semblance of a beat, and singers who don't put me to sleep or make me gag, at least not yet. Even the two I'm calling "post Radiohead prog" give up something rhythmically and melodically that pulls me in. Actually they might be more post-Gentle Giant or Soft Machine prog, for all know, but I kind of like the idea of preferring bands influenced by Radiohead to Radiohead themselves. I was always like that about Frank Zappa-influenced bands, too.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Ha, just noticed that Health have been added as a Singles Jukebox song (and I have no idea what my opinion about that particular track is, at least not yet).

A few more not-bad (and maybe even good) 2009 rock albums:

Tim Carroll – All Kinds Of Pain (Gulcher)
UFO – The Visitor (SPV)
The Pinx – Look What You Made Me Do (The Pinx)
The Backsliders – Thank You (The Backsliders EP)
The Aggrolites – The Aggrolites IV (Hellcat)
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs – La Luz Del Ritmo (Nacional)
The Answer – Everyday Demons (The End)
Dead Man – Euphoria (Crusher)
Living Things – Habeas Corpus (Jive/Zomba)
Cross Stitched Eyes – Coranach (Alternative Tentacles EP)
Talk Normal – Secret Cog (Menlo Park Recordings EP)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

And (getting more and more marginal, maybe, but still -- I actually totally imagine you liking Fires Of Rome and/or Gene Dante, actually.) (Maybe the Pinx or Backsliders or Steadlur or Mike & the Ravens, too. Or maybe not):

Okie Dokie – Okie Dokie (Aago EP)
Fires Of Rome – You Kingdom You (The Hours)
Crocodiles – Summer Of Hate (Fat Possum)
Gene Dante and the Future Starlets – The Romantic Lead (Omnirox Entertainment)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

"I actually could totally imagine you liking...", I meant. (And please ignore the second "actually." As usual with livejournal, my proofreading skills have disappeared into the shitter on this thread. "Check spelling and preview" really shouldn't scare me, but it still does for some reason.)

Okie Dokie and Talk Normal are artsy noise-core bands, by the way. It would be way beyond annoying to endure to an entire album by either, but somehow 5 songs in 10 minutes or whatever seems novel enough. Ditto Cross-Stitched Eyes' crusty early '80s (as in Void or early Die Kreuzen say)-style thrash-core. Meercaz and Frozen Bears are really noisy too, and their albums are short ones, but there's something more personable about them I haven't quite pinpointed yet.

Gene Dante is glam revisionism, Aggrolietes are ska revisionism, the Answer are classic rock revisionism, Crocodiles are Jesus and Mary Chain revisionism, Tim Carrol is Velvety Stoogey country singer-songwriting, the Pinx and Fires of Rome are hard rock bands disguised as indie bands. And so on and so forth.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Also, oh yeah, rockish singles I like this year, most of which you know about already. Pretty slim pickings, though I suspect some of the other albums listed above also have good singles on them that I just don't know are (or hear as) singles. The Cage The Elephant song is actually a radio hit, and has an outside shot at my year-end top ten (though not as good a one as White Wizzard).

White Wizzard – “High Speed GTO”
Cage The Elephant – “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked”
The Love Willows – “Falling Faster”
Meercaz – “Unlust”
Florence and the Machine – “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” (assuming this counts as "rock"; I'm not sure how I'd classify it.)
Slaraffenland – “Meet And Greet” (ditto)
Cauldron – “Chained Up In Chains”
Sarah Borges And The Broken Singles – “Do It For Free”
Kal – “Ding Deng Dong” (ditto as above)
Weird Al Yankovic – “Craigslist”
Nickelback – “Burn It To The Ground”
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”